Man charged with choking girlfriend, threat with gun

By NANCY BEAN FOSTERUnion Leader CorrespondentFebruary 19. 2013 7:17PMMILFORD - A local man has been charged with two felony counts after allegedly choking his girlfriend and pointing a gun at her during an argument last week.

Mason police arrested David Janik, 49, of 658 Brookline Road after his girlfriend called police from Southern New Hampshire Medical Center where she was being treated after the altercation, according to court documents.

The documents stated that the woman was sleeping at Janik's home on Saturday when he woke her up and began arguing with her about text messages on her phone. He dragged the woman into the next room, and when she tried to retrieve her phone from him, he held her in a choke hold, preventing her from being able to breathe, the documents said.

He threw her against a wall and crushed the screen on her phone, and choked her again before grabbing the woman's handgun off a nearby table and pointing it at her head, according to the documents.

Janik then forced the woman into his truck and drove her to his auto repair shop in Brookline where her car was parked. He made her leave the car and told her that if she called the police, he would first shoot her horse and then he would shoot her, the documents said.

The woman was able to leave in her own car and went to the hospital, where she was met by family and called the police, according to police.

Janik was arrested at his home on a warrant and charged with one Class B felony count of second-degree assault, one Class B felony count of criminal threatening, along with false imprisonment and simple assault, both Class A misdemeanors.

Janik was held at Valley Street Jail in Manchester over the weekend on $50,000 cash-only bail and was arraigned at the 9th Circuit Court in Milford on Tuesday morning. Judge Martha Crocker reduced Janik's bail to $50,000 cash or corporate surety with orders not to have any contact with his girlfriend.

Crocker also granted the woman a temporary domestic violence order against Janik during a hearing later in the morning, which will forbid Janik from possessing any firearms or having any contact with the woman.

Janik is scheduled to return to court for a probable cause hearing on March 12.